Bihar engineer in vigilance net: Cash, jewellery worth over Rs 70 lakhs seized during raids

The raids were carried out simultaneously by the vigilance team at the Bhagalpur and Patna residences of the engineer. The cash and ornaments worth Rs 70 to 80 lakhs were recovered during the raid.

Bhagalpur:A ten-member team from the Economic Offences Unit (EOU) conducted raids on the residential and office premises of a road construction department engineer in Bhagalpur district of Bihar on Wednesday.

These raids were carried out simultaneously by the vigilance team at the Bhagalpur and Patna residences of the engineer. The cash and ornaments worth Rs 70 to 80 lakhs were recovered during the raids. Besides cash and jewellery, land-related papers owned by the engineer in Uttarakhand's Dehradun were seized.

The raids were carried out on the residential and office premises of engineer Shrikant Sharma situated in the Hanuman Nagar locality of the town. Sharma is the executive engineer in the Road Construction Department. Besides, he also holds the post of project engineer at Bridge Construction Corporation. A disproportionate assets (DA) case had been registered against Sharma at the Patna Vigilance police station on July 24. Following the registration of the DA case in Patna, the team from the vigilance department carried out the raid.

Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Sanjay Jaiswal who was leading the raiding team, said, "A case of disproportionate assets had been registered against engineer Shrikant Sharma at the Vigilance Police Station in Patna. After obtaining the search warrant from the Vigilance Court, the house and office premises of the engineer were raided. We are expecting disproportionate assets amounting to around Rs 70-80 lakhs to be recovered. The valuation of seized jewellery is underway."

Neighbours of the engineer were taken aback when a large number of officials along with the police team arrived at the spot to carry out a search operation.